The present invention relates to the field of communication systems and to systems and methods for distributing traffic across multiple backhauls using associated decision criteria.
In a communication network, such as a broadband wireless network, each base station or similar node is connected to the core network via a backhaul connection. Backhaul connections can be implemented using a variety of technologies such as point-to-point (PtP) wireless in a variety of frequencies both licensed and unlicensed, point-to-multipoint (PmP) wireless in a variety of frequencies, Ethernet over copper or fiber optic cable, cable modem, etc. These backhaul technologies can have a variety of capacities, for instance 10 megabits per second (Mbps), 100 Mbps, and 1 gigabit per second are common capacities for Ethernet technologies. Additionally, the backhaul choices may have difference performance or operational costs. For instance one backhaul choice may be owned by the operator of the base station while another may be leased. One backhaul choice may be more or less costly to install or maintain than other choices. Different backhaul choices may have different robustness, such as unlicensed spectrum wireless versus licensed spectrum wireless. Different backhaul choices may lead to additional computational resources being used in the base station such as the need to implement IP-SEC or TR-0069 tunneling over an untrusted backhaul such as a backhaul not owned by the operator of the base station.